I know this is not my usual type of blog post, but I need to rant and I was hoping you would all listen to me, or read it. I think this rant is going to be fairly tame now, as what I want to talk about happened a few weeks ago. So what started […]
Baking for my food photography – Using a KitchenAid Stand Mixer or not
Lovely post filled with wisdom of bakery full of family love to business opportunities as a great baker. You deserve high recommendations for your humility in your home. Almighty God bless you with more wisdom in Jesus name. More power to your elbow keep up your good job madam.
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Fellow bread-baker from the East Coast of the States Leanne.
I ran across your post from a newsfeed today; and man, does it sound familiar!
I started baking bread seriously in 2012, and after almost burning the house down …ahem…on several occasions (in an effort to be “frugal”), using a new-in-the-box Toastmaster Hand Mixer with spiral dough hooks from the 80’s (seriously y’all!…the box still had the price sticker on it from JC Penny in MS-DOS font…iykyk!) I’d found at a thrift store – hubby surprised me with a KA Professional
5 Plus (lift bowl with metal gears)
I was stoked! I felt like a REAL home baker/cook. I primarily made cookies, a few cakes here and there, shredded chicken/pork. I even bought that blasted plastic meat grinder and frustratingly attempted homemade sausages over the years.
I’d stumbled upon Bake with Jack from across the pond by then, and accepted a challenge he’d issued to make your own bread after reading (and trying to pronounce) the ingredients in a standard loaf of “healthy”, conventional bread. After succumbing to the sin and shame of feeding my family that junk, I repented by diving head-first into making my own sandwich loaves for our sweet girl’s daily PB&Js. I’d already been at a good clip, knocking out beautiful and delicious artisan breads – a’la Jim Lahey, but I really wanted to push myself and commit to making all of our baked goods from scratch.
Enter the kitchenaid or “Big Ma” as I call her;… so I thought. Named after my paternal great grandmother, who ran our family’s farm in North Carolina with an iron fist – I felt that I now had a workhorse to assist me in my culinary quest…I was wrong. Long story short, I DID NOT properly vet this machine or this company, to be honest.
While I bake batches upon batches of cookies weekly and Big Ma has no problem, she could NOT handle bread. Outside of a straightforward sandwich loaf to include whole wheat, often times made with partial amounts of bread flour; I was very much interested in making baguettes and brioche. But Oh, how that thing whined, processing bread dough! It sounded like a cat in heat!…It struggled with double batches, and in my opinion; a glaring design flaw made it hard for the spiral dough hook to knead properly in a decent amount of time. Can’t tell you how many times I was about to throw the entire machine out of the window!!!
I had watched ALL the YouTube videos on this specific model…wanting to make sure the bowl height was properly adjusted, if it had enough gear oil, if I was using the proper speed. Unfortunately, there weren’t too many resources for me to watch back then, and I did the best I could.
That was 2017, and I muddled through until the pandemic and sweet hubby started working from home. He is not a man of many complaints at all – but the KA was so incredibly noisy that it was disrupting his work calls…from downstairs!! I don’t know how or when, but in all my research for a suitable replacement, I found myself drawn like a moth to a flame – to the peculiar looking machine of Swedish design, and I fell HARD!!!! Like, almost as hard as I did for hubs…almost. Anyway, that hardworking, generous man of mine came through for me again, and just before the pandemic really cranked up, he scored an Ankarsrum from PHG. And I haven’t looked back!
This week, I did a triple batch of super stiff homemade gingerbread dough for our houses, and I swear Hank (what? Your boyfriends don’t have names….er…I mean, you haven’t given your kitchen equipment names????) legit scoffed at me as if to say, “This all you got???” ….To which I said, “Alright Big Boy, you want more, oh I gots more!!!…..Ok, things just got a little weird there. Apologies. Uuummm pivoting back on topic.
My experience, therefore, my two cents: today’s kitchenaid is NOT for the serious bread-maker. It’s fine for counter-top adornment and for those who bake cookies/cakes regularly and engage in the common practice of holiday baking. That said, I think it’s important for anyone in the market for a stand mixer to really consider usage to determine the best option. Making 6 loaves at once, 2 – 3 times per week, the Ankarsrum was the way to go for me.
As much as I love my Ankarsrum, I personally think it’s overkill for the average American kitchen for sure, and I highly recommend the BUP instead. Our daughter is 11, and hubby found the now discontinued in the US market, Bosch Compact mixer on ebay for her several years ago. It’s been a great little introductory to the world of baking for her, and great for travel too!
I’m sorry you had to deal with the rigmarol of KA Leanne, but glad you found your way to the brilliant and resourceful design of Ankarsrum. I certainly hope you’ve passed its learning curve by now and that you’re cranking out delicious goods with ease, confidence, and great joy!
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